Chapter Eight
Grif
W hen I returned from the bathroom, cheering students surrounded whoever was currently in the ice bath. Carlos yelled especially loudly. He and Clark had wanted to come with me. Dean had goalie stuff, so Jonas stayed back with him.
My heart stopped as I got a glimpse of the woman in the tub.
Her.
Airplane Girl.
Of course! That’s why the little sister had asked me to come .
Verity was in New York.
Fucking shit. Verity was in New York.
“Halfway, keep it up.” Rusty checked the stopwatch.
Verity looked like she’d pop up out of the tub and flee any second. Shit. I desperately wanted to soothe her and make it better.
“That’s her panic face. Get her out,” Mercy hissed at Rusty.
I kicked my shoes off and tossed my phone to the ground. Climbing into the icy water, I seated her between my legs. I wrapped my bare arms around her, pulling her into me, as if I could lend her my strength and warmth.
The chill of the water cut through me, but I didn’t care. All that mattered was the willowy woman in my arms.
“I... I’ve got this,” she choked out, on the verge of hyperventilating, not looking up.
Did she know it was me?
“I know. You’re one of the strongest people I’ve ever met. Now take a deep breath, Kitten,” I said quietly, leaning in until my lips were near her ear. My words were for her only.
Her driftwood and sea salt scent hit me at full force as she took a breath. These ocean waves weren’t lapping languidly, they were crashing against the rocks, compelling, consuming, and ready to drag me under.
Even in this icy water, it made my dick twitch. Drag me under, Kitten. Drown me in your scent. Now that I found her, I’d never let her go.
“So good. Take another. You’re almost there. You’ve got this, Gorgeous,” I told her, getting a hit of her sweet desire as she melted into my arms.
I pulled her closer, relishing the way her body fit into mine. Verity didn’t get lost in my largeness. She nested, like one container inside of another.
Being this close to her made me hornier than a teenager when Dean’s parents would go out of town and leave us to watch the house.
All aboard the hot hormone express.
“Time,” Rusty finally called. “Good job, Team Mom!”
About fucking time. This felt colder than I was used to. The Maimers must do something different. A bunch of the students cheered, though a few looked disappointed.
Why did people even volunteer for this? I didn’t have much money when I was a student, but I wouldn’t have done shit like this for tickets and a sweatshirt except on maybe the hottest of summer days.
“Help me get out?” Verity whispered, teeth chattering.
I scooped her up in my arms and got us both out of the freezing water. Blue tinged her lips. Someone threw Maimers blankets over us.
“Thanks,” I muttered. Not putting her down, I walked over to the little warming station they’d set up.
I looked down at the woman in my arms, falling into her blue-green eyes. Heat from the lamp warmed us. If only there was a hot bath I could take her in. Then I’d get her all warmed up and bury myself in her.
Did she crave me to the same degree that I craved her? I hope so.
“Hey, Kitten. Long time, no see.” I’d found her. It felt as right as it had on the plane.
More.
“Hey, Grif,” she shivered, “I guess you’re not a fútbol player.”
I chuckled a little. “No. I guess introductions are in order? I’m Griffin McGraff, and I’m a forward for the New York Knights. Though when you met me, I was still with the Biscayne Bay Hurricanes.”
“Like the sweatshirt? I should’ve realized that. As my little sister says, I might be smart, but I’m not always bright. Verity Thorne. PhD student at NYIT.” She smiled, lighting up her entire face.
Yep. PhD student. Big sister. Collegiate fútbol player. Model.
Verity play smacked me, expression turning exasperated. “Why did you get in with me? Now you’re wet and cold, and you’re going to get sick. Please tell me that you have clothes to change into?”
Her tone made me chuckle. Yep, this was someone used to taking care of younger siblings.
She glared at my laugh. “I do not want your teammates mad at me if you get sick and miss a game.”
“You were panicking, Kitten. I didn’t want those assholes to win A’s on their next test or whatever they got if you failed.” I watched as one of her students prepared to go in with Rusty. Another eyed Clark as Carlos chatted people up.
“They weren’t getting A’s. But thank you.” Her voice went soft. “I was panicking. I’ve done it before, so I thought I could do it. But this time I couldn’t. Thank you. I didn’t want to fail in front of everyone.”
“Anytime, Kitten.” All I could do was gaze at her.
She looked around, amused. “Are you just going to casually hold me under the heat lamp? Did you bring clothes? You should change.”
While dry clothes would be nice, I wasn’t interested in putting her down. By her body language, she didn’t want that, either. Yeah, I’d hold her under the heat lamp as long as we could.
A woman in a lab coat came over. “Who’s this, Ver?”
She was maybe Verity’s age, but not nearly as tall. Beautiful braids ranging from brown to pale green fell down her back in a waterfall.
“Airplane Guy.” A shy smile played on Verity’s lips. “Saphira, meet Grif, of the New York Knights. Grif, this is Saphira. She’s in my PhD cohort.”
“Nice to meet you.” She smirked again. Saphira also had a southern drawl, but it differed from Verity’s. “I think I’m going to do it.”
“Have fun.” Verity waved as Saphira left. She traced her finger over the griffin tattoo on my arm. “Nice.”
“Thanks.” Oh, right, I’d been wearing long sleeves on the plane.
Mercy and the very young player with the pink hair puffs came over to us holding a sweatshirt, followed by the team social media person.
“Look at the back. We made it for you.” Mercy beamed with pride.
I put Verity down. She turned the Maimers’ shirt over, where someone had written Team Mom in sparkly fabric paint and decorated it with tiny gems.
Verity beamed. “Thank you both so much. I love it.”
They got pictures and the other girl left as the next challenger got into the tub. Mercy stayed, looking me up and down critically.
“So, this is Airplane Guy. We’re here for a while, so you two can go get coffee and talk. Rusty will hand me off, then you can let me see a movie with Kaiko, and I’ll be back by curfew. You can then take Airplane Guy back to our place and tie him up and spank him and call him a good boy like in one of your romance novels.” Mercy grinned at her.
“You can date now?” I asked, remembering what she’d said on the plane. Also, I got the feeling that Verity didn’t want to be the one doing the spanking. Which was fine by me. I’d much rather be in control.
Not to mention, I still wanted to take her out on that date sometime. One where I brought her flowers, and Mercy could tell me to make sure she was home by curfew.
“Mercy.” Verity rolled her eyes.
“You know on the bus to away games we used to read the highlighted bits in your e-books out loud? Yep, the dating ban has been lifted.” Mercy gave me a sharp look as she ran her eyes over me. “Break her heart and I will break your stick.” The young alpha left.
Well then.
“Would you like to get a coffee? You got all wet for me. It’s the least I can do. After we change, of course. I mean, can I take you? Or do you have responsibilities?” she asked.
Was she being dirty on purpose? Probably not.
I liked it. A lot.
“Mmmm, you can most definitely take me, Kitten. Or...” Leaning in, my lips brushed her ear. “I can take you and get you all wet.”
A flash of arousal hit me, along with something else. On the plane, I figured her for a beta. Now, I wasn’t so sure.
As long as she wanted me, I didn’t care.
“Grif.” Her eyes sparkled as she gave me another play slap.
“Coffee sounds great,” I told her. Mmmm, yeah, she liked that idea. So did I. Talk dirty to me, Kitten.
We watched her friend and two of her students go into the ice. Finally, Mercy came back over, holding shoes, a backpack, and the cane.
“Thanks.” Verity sat down in a plastic chair and pulled her shoes on, still trembling a little under the blanket.
“I’ll grab my stuff and change and meet you in front of the bathrooms?” I told her.
“Perfect.” Grabbing her backpack, she leaned on the cane and got up and walked off toward the bathrooms.
Mercy eyed me. “Good job not making a fuss over the crutch. I meant what I said about not breaking her heart. Ver might not be your typical alpha female, but she’s a good person who deserves fun and good things, not more assholes. I’m watching you.”
Alpha? Kitten was an alpha. Huh. That must be the extra something I smelled. She probably used de-scenter on the plane. I grabbed my bag, shoes, and phone.
Usually, I’d be hesitant to date an alpha. But not her.
I let Clark know I was getting coffee and changed in the bathroom. Dean had texted several times after Carlos had flooded the team group chat with pictures.
Dean
You got in the water with her? Did you keep her warm?
Me
So warm we’re about to have coffee.
Dean
Do you still feel it?
Me
Her scent gave me a boner while in ice water.
Dean
Bring her over for dinner?
He added suggestive emojis. Fucking horny omega.
Me
Not sure what the plan is.
Or if I wanted to introduce her to them immediately. Tell her about them? Absolutely. However, I didn’t want to scare her. My husband could be a lot.
Verity waited for me, leaning on her cane, which was more like a fancy pink crutch that went up her arm. Now, she wore leggings and a Maimers sweatshirt.
“Shall we?” With a grin, she led me through the student center to a coffee shop, with couches and beanbags, and cozy nooks for studying, besides tables and chairs.
“The usual?” the young woman behind the counter asked Verity.
“Absolutely.” Verity eyed the pastry case. “Oh, and a lemon cake slice. What would you like, Grif? My treat. I have more dining dollars than I can use.”
“Thank you.” If I let her take me to coffee, I could then ask her to dinner. “Black coffee and...” I looked over the paltry offerings, the case obviously picked over. “A chocolate cake pop.”
I shouldn’t, but oh well. The Knight’s nutrition staff was much stricter than the Hurricanes’ and took all the fun out of eating.
We got coffee, and she led me over to a corner, where we sat in armchairs around a table. She rested her crutch against the chair and took a bite of cake, making joyful noises that hit me straight in the dick.
If I nibbled on her, would she make those sounds, too?
“Thank you for getting in with me. Also, thanks for making my dreadful day better back on the plane.” Hauling her backpack onto her lap, she pulled out the sweatshirt I’d given her. “It’s not clean. I didn’t mean to take it. I looked for you a little, but only in fútbol teams. Then things got busy, and I didn’t have the time.”
“You can keep it, Kitten.” By the fading, it had been worn and washed over and over. Something about that made me incredibly happy.
“I can? Thank you so much. It... it’s so silly, but it got me through a lot.” She beamed and held it to her.
Oh, I wanted her to hold me like that.
“Did they hurt you? As retaliation?” I eyed her crutch, taking a sip of the strong coffee. Clearly, a lot had happened since that flight.
“Oh, no. That... that was the topper on my awful day. On the way to my sister’s house, I had a stroke.” Verity tucked the sweatshirt away.
“From the stress?” I couldn’t think of any other reasons someone our age might have a stroke .
“Bad blockers.” Her shoulders slumped.
“A stroke. Are you okay?” I asked. Blockers. She took alpha-blockers. That was why I didn’t smell that she was an alpha on the plane. It wasn’t very common. She probably had lots of omega siblings and did it out of courtesy, like my alpha brother who had an omega twin.
“I will be. Of course, instead of the parents being worried, I got lectures about how it was my fault for taking them. You know what I realized? I’ll never be enough for them. I’ll never be a good alpha because to them I was never good enough to be an alpha.” The corners of her mouth turned down in a frown.
Oh, Kitten. My heart went out to her.
“I’m happy you had that realization. You got away from them, didn’t you? That’s why you’re here in New York?” I drank my coffee, trying to put everything together.
“I never went back. When I crawled out the window to catch my plane, I didn’t think that I’d never return.” Her look went pensive.
I fisted my free hand to keep from cupping her face with it and wiping away that look with my lips.
“Mercy went pro, and you came with her?” I’m sure that didn’t go well with the parents.
“Yes. It turned out that my professor that was leaving Briar was coming here. He really encouraged me to join him. I wasn’t sure I’d be ready because of the stroke. Then the skate smash draft happened. We weren’t expecting to hear Mercy’s name. It was chaos and the parents were livid.” She took a sip of her drink.
Yeah, I could see that.
“I’m happy that you’re both here,” I told her. And safe.
“I don’t mind taking care of her; I just didn’t want to drop out of my PhD program. So, I accepted the offer and we told the parents to fuck off. The judge sided with Mercy when she got emancipated. One of my brothers rebelled and is openly studying music, even though the parents forbade him. It’s anarchy now among us kids now that they dissolved the pack.” She gave a derisive chuckle.
“Oh no, not music.” I laughed. I’d studied music at BosTec.
She laughed, eyes glimmering. “I know. I’m a bad influence. And here we are. Single and free to mingle.”
Yes, please. I wanted all her bad influences to mingle with me.
“I’m glad she has a sister like you. You like it here?” I ate my cake pop in one bite, the chocolate exploding over my tongue. I had a major sweet tooth.
She took another sip and nodded. “I’ve always liked it here. The Maimers have made us feel at home. NYIT was generous. We’re okay. While my siblings made a lot of this happen, I want to do as much myself as I can.”
Noted. She seemed like the sort of person who was proud and self-sufficient to a fault.
“Question: If the parents are strict and didn’t let you have much freedom, how did you convince them to let you model bikinis?” I asked, a smile on my lips.
“You saw that. While I’ve always had a lot of responsibilities, the parents weren’t always insufferable. Basically, I like cute things and started out doing local stuff for free clothes. I loved it. Fútbol got expensive in high school. My cousin in France got me a couple of modeling jobs so I could help pay for things. It went from there.” Verity ate another bite of cake.
“Personally, I like the one of you in the red bikini under the waterfall.” The one of her on a runway in an evening gown was my second favorite.
“A favor to my cousin. Anyhow, when I started my PhD, I got too busy to do more than the occasional job. Now that I’m here in New York, I hope to do more, though I’m still pretty busy. The parents have opinions. They always do. Even when I’m not speaking to them.” She gave a look of defeat.
“Fuck them.” I hated that they didn’t see in decades what I saw in moments.
Her look went coy. “I’d rather fuck you.”
“I’d like that.” Oh, the fun we could have.
“What Mercy said, about tying you up and spanking you, I... I’ll try if that’s what you like, but I’m not really that kind of alpha. I’m sorry.” She got busy with her cake slice.
“That’s perfect, Kitten. While I’ll absolutely let you do that to me, I’d be more than happy to do that to you. You want to be taken care of in the bedroom?” I met her gaze as I turned on the smolder. “I can take care of you so well. Make you come so hard like I did on the plane.”
Her eyes closed, and her scent flared with want as she finished her cake, hopefully imagining whatever she wanted me to do to her.
Dean and I had discussed it. As long as she knew about him, and I’d kiss and tell, he was fine with me exploring whatever this was between us.
I’d brought it up with AJ, who’d just said whatever and stalked off . But he had a lot going on at work and worried about me seeing a stranger, which I understood.
Jonas was all have fun, be careful.
Still, I wanted to see where this went. Yes, I’d get my little kitten mewing, if not tonight. Soon.